The languages of Iran (Farsi), and Northern India (Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, etc.) are philologically related to the languages of Europes in the Indo-European linguistic family.
Though the Asian Indo-European languages are culturally seperated from the languages of Europe, there are a significant number of words that are cognates between the languages of both regions (further reading). Whether two words are cognate or not depends upon both phonological form (with sound shifts considered acceptable) and meaning. The links given explain this in better detail.
I am trying to come up with some number of examples of personal names that are cognates between Asian IE languages and European IE languages, in the same way that Peter is cognate to *Pierre * and Pedro.
The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is the Latin-derived name Rex and the Hindi (?) Raj, which both mean “king”.
I only know the Iranian ones. I’m making up my own spelling for these as there is no standardized way of doing this.
There is Cyrus (pronounced like SEE-roos), Eskandar (Alexander), Davoud (David), Yusef (Joseph), Maryam (Mariam) and Leila.
There are others to be sure. Many of these are religious in nature and were passed around because of this I’m sure. Alexander may have also had an impact on Iran when conquered it.
The Hindi name Vijay (from Sanskrit vijaya) means “victory”, but I don’t know if it’s actually cognate with the Latin-derived name Victor. (The Sanskrit word comes from the prefix vi- and the root ji.)
There’s a perfectly good Sanskrit epithet sujana which is cognate with the Greek-derived name Eugene, “well-born”, but I don’t know if there’s an Indian name derived from the Sanskrit word.
And I suppose you wouldn’t count modern Western names that are simply borrowed from Indian ones, like Chandra or Uma or Devi.
Old names of Indo-European deities (more common in Indian than European nomenclature, though) might be your best bet. For example, the Proto-Indo-European goddess of dawn whose name is reconstructed as *aus-os was known in Sanskrit as “Ushas” and in Latin as “Aurora”. “Usha” is still a popular Hindi name, but you might not find too many “Auroras” around these days.
Yes, I think the feminine name Sujanya (or Soujanya) is derived from Sanskrit su- and jan, which would make it cognate with Eugene and Eugenia.
And yes, Hindi “Rani” is from Sanskrit rajni which is the feminine form of raja which is cognate with Rex.
And yes, if you’ll accept Deva/Theo cognates, as bordelond says, Devdan is the equivalent of Theodore (“gift of God”).
As for Chandra, it’s from Sanskrit cand, “to shine brightly”, which is cognate with Latin “candeo”, “candela”, but I’m not sure about the “Selene” connection: does that fit?
There’s also the Hindi name Manu, from Sanskrit manu, which is cognate with Germanic/English “man”, which should get you a whole slew of archaic names like Manfred and so on.
Hmmm. There seem to be more of these than I originally thought. I’m really curious, though: why are you looking for cognate proper names in Indo-Iranian and Western Indo-European languages?
I don’t think the following are cognates – they got into the language, I suspect, through the Greek historians, from which later generations grabbed them and used them as monickers for their kids. If not for the Greeks, I suspect these names wouldn’t have made it as Western names.
I was fascinated to read in the appendix to L. Sprague de Camp’s historical novel The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate that the names of the Persian kings are significantly changed versions of the originals. de Camp gives the original forms (although where he got these from, I don’t know) with the Persian original. There’s a lot of changing to shoehorn the names into the Greek style. I shouldn’t be surprised – foreign names have been “adapted” to Greek for years. Egyptian names like “User- Man-Re” becomes “Ozymandias”, “Ra-Mose” becomes “Ramses”, etc. Hebrew names got “Hellenized” via the Septuagint, like “Moishe” becoming “Moses”.
But the names I reffered to at the start are these:
**Darius == Daryavahush
Cyrus == Kurush == Koresh
Xerxes == Kshayarsha
Artaxerxes == Artakshathra**
I love the way the original forms are so different and sound more appropriate to the region. I never woulda guessed at the original forms. And I’ve always wondered about Xerxes and Artaxerxes. We see that the original forms aren’t so similar at all.
Nevertheless, Darius, Cyrus, and Xerxes, at least, have become popular Western names. I’ve never heard of an “Artaxerxes”, but I’ll bet it’s been used. But, as I say, I suspect the names came into Western culture through literary influences, through the Greek historians, rather than being part of some common cultural set of names that has been passed down as a shared memory, so I don’t think these are truly “cognate” forms.
Elias Auerbach, in his book Moses, claims that “Miriam” is from Egyptian “Mrij” = “beloved”. If true, the name may be cognate, but it’s of Egyptian origin.
I understand that some of the Latin names of the Gods are cognate with Sanskrit forms. Thus
**Varuna == Uranus
Dyaus Piter (Sky Father) = = Jupiter
Dyaus == Zeus**
Jupiter and Zeus have been used as personal names, but I don’t know if any of the others have been, particularly the Sanskrit ones.
The definitions on the Indian name site above suggest that the masculine Hindi masculine name Madhukar is a cognate of the Greek feminine name Melissa (both meaning “bee”).
Sanskrit-derived Jagganath (cf “juggernaut”) is a semantic cognate of Slavic Vladimir (“lord of the world”).
Apparently my last name is the same or similar to the word for warrior in Farsi. I was in a shop run by an Iranian family and wrote my name on a special order form. The lady behind the counter looked at me in surprise and asked me if I was of Middle Eastern decent, then informed me that the word meant warrior in her language. It was very strange. She honestly looked shocked.
BTW, I’m not of Middle Eastern decent, I’m an American Mutt and my grandfather’s family came from Scotland waaaaaaaaay back.
Can someone please tell me what the word for warrior is in Farsi? I’m curious to how similar it is to my real last name.
